Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak is moving further to the
political right by declaring war on the province’s public-sector union bosses –
a move that appeals to his party’s base but runs the risk of alienating potential supporters.

Mr. Hudak is accusing union leaders of buying votes in a key by-election and
is vowing to redouble his efforts to roll out a Conservative agenda. He plans to
release a white paper on Monday on reforming the health-care system and
shrinking the size of the bureaucracy.

“We are the only party with the guts to say ‘no’ to the union bosses,” Mr.
Hudak said at a news conference on Friday, a day after the New Democratic
Party’s historic victory in Kitchener-Waterloo, a riding that had been a Tory
stronghold for more than two decades.

The province’s public-sector unions were already in Mr. Hudak’s crosshairs
over his push for an across-the-board legislated wage freeze. He escalated his
attack on Friday by warning that it is “dangerous and ominous” for the province
to see the kind of power displayed by labour leaders, who succeeded in getting
many disgruntled teachers to defect to the NDP from the Liberals during the
by-election in the Southern Ontario riding.

Robin Sears, a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group and a former NDP
national director, said Mr. Hudak is caught in a political dilemma. While union
bashing appeals to the core of the Tory party, Mr. Sears said in an interview,
Mr. Hudak is also presenting a vision that has little appeal for other
conservatives.

“What he needs to say to survive as leader is going to hurt him as a
prospective premier,” he said.

The results in the Kitchener-Waterloo by-election raise more questions about
Mr. Hudak’s leadership. He was already facing some dissent within the party
after he went into the October provincial election with a double-digit lead in
the polls, only to lose to the governing Liberals.

Former Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory, now a Toronto
radio host, also faced questions about his stewardship after the party’s
electoral defeat in 2007. His advice to Mr. Hudak? Hire food tasters.

“When things are not going well,” Mr. Tory said on Newstalk 1010
on Friday, “there are people in your party who get impatient and who decide that
they better take matters into their own hands. All of a sudden, rumours and
stories and cabals and conspiracies start emerging, so I’d say a food taster
would be in order.”

Next story

| Learn More

Discover content from The Globe and Mail that you might otherwise not have come across. Here we’ll provide you with fresh suggestions where we will continue to make even better ones as we get to know you better.